The office that reads together, succeeds together

Books are shown from the Chicago Publishers Gallery, a lovely space formerly located at the Cultural Center that moved this year to the Read/Write Library in Humboldt Park.

Books are shown from the Chicago Publishers Gallery, a lovely space formerly located at the Cultural Center that moved this year to the Read/Write Library in Humboldt Park. (Charles Osgood/for the Tribune)

"Personal development, communication skills, business education — that's what we read," said Josh Davis, who with his brother Bo Hamby lead the roofing company they started in 2010.

"We wanted to embed the culture of learning in the DNA of our company," Davis said, "and to do that, we need people who are open to developing their skills."

That means a reading list heavy on Stephen Covey, Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar and other self-improvement and business-improvement authors. Usually, one or two books a month are assigned for the staff to read.

"After we read 'The Goal,' a novel about operational efficiencies and bottlenecks, we recognized that Josh was a bottleneck in our system, and we transitioned one of our salespeople into production to relieve that bottleneck," Hamby said.

"We even did 'Man's Search for Meaning,' a Holocaust survivor book that basically says they can take away everything except your attitude."

To help create time for books, the company has an audible book account for employees so they can listen during travel time in their vehicles.

The brothers even have required reading before they'll hire a new employee. Greg Nelson, for example, was assigned "How to Win Friends and Influence People" before his sales and project manager job offer was affirmed.

"The most difficult thing is to hire great people," Hamby said. "A person in an interview could say cliches, but we rotate applicants through multipart interviews with our different divisions. … It's amazing the different insights you get."

(Diane Stafford is the workplace and careers columnist at The Kansas City Star. Her "Your Job" blog at economy.kansascity.com includes daily posts about job-related issues of wide interest. Readers may write to her at: Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108-1413, or by email at dstafford@kcstar.com.)

Q: A couple of years ago, after our small construction company was hit hard by the recession, all employees received a 5 percent pay cut. Last year, the owners told us that if a couple of big projects came through, our pay would be restored in 2012.